Sixteen Candles
by crackers4jenn
Summary: Annie, one exceptionally normal study group, doesn't say a word.


Annie, one exceptionally normal study group, doesn't say a word.

Not while Britta continually butchers the correct pronunciation for _vacío_, not when Troy breaks off into a four minute tangent on spiders and his legit fear of, not even when Jeff breathes out his usual annoyance, bemoans the lack of importance to learning Spanish in the first place, and proposes they instead reward their thus far efforts with some Greendale frozen yogurt.

It's only as everyone's gathering to leave that they notice that Annie is, well, still sitting there, face pinched in like any second now, here come the water works. Jeff braces himself, because, crap, of all the days to leave his immunization at home.

Luckily, they have Shirley, who enjoys both the act of comforting and the idea of weeding out potential gossip.

"Annie..." Somehow, the endearment is implied. "Wouldn't you like some frozen yogurt?"

Troy snaps his fingers. "Maybe she _hates_ frozen yogurt."

Shirley pulls back, hands clasped, and nods. Problem solved! "Ohhhh."

"Hey, maybe she's lactose intolerant," Britta muses, while Pierce adds to the mix, "Nothing worse than being deprived nature's sweet nectar. I'm talking milk, of course, freshly squeezed from the most supple of nipples--"

Everyone groans noisily. Except for Annie, who's frown only deepens.

"Look," Jeff tries reason, a tactic that normally doesn't work on this crew, but hey. First time for anything. "Maybe Annie just doesn't want frozen yogurt."

"Look at her," Pierce marvels. "Like a living doll."

Troy's eyes grow wide. "That," he breathes, "is the creepiest thing _ever_."

"She could have six more legs," Abed points out. "Like an arachnid."

Britta gets all technical. "Why would she have six more legs?"

Abed shrugs. "Beats me. I was just voicing an alternate scenario."

Shirley leans toward Annie again, wears her I'm A Good Christian, Ask Me How! face. "Annie... sweetie... yoohoo! You okay?"

Finally Annie's eyes focus. Shirley nods at her, encouraging. Everyone else hovers expectantly. It's probably not a stretch to assume Abed hears the inner-swell of dramatic music reaching a crescendo.

Then:

"You guys forgot my birthday."

Like Annie had spit fire on her, Shirley pulls back. "Now, that's a surprise." Her voice is surprisingly shrill, like the high frequency of it will cover up the guilt.

"Speaking on behalf of the group," Jeff drawls, "are you sure you even _told_ us it was your birthday?"

And Annie surges off the chair in an impressive force of emotions, like a geyser of crazy.

"_Told_?" she parrots, all edgy and slightly hysterical. It makes Jeff's hands fly up in the air in a gesture of surrender: what does he know? He's just a man. Men are stupid. Men don't know anything. Oh dear god, please not the doe eyes.

Troy whispers to Britta, "Is today her period?" Britta has the good will to NOT claw Troy's out, instead lets a stray glare do her work for her.

Voice an octave higher than normal, Annie says, closing in on the group, eyes all wild, "I've been _telling_ you about it for a week!"

And sure enough:

"Hey, guys," Annie said, five days back. "Got any _cool_ plans for the weekend?"

Everyone had grumbled about barren calendars and their sad, empty social lives.

Jeff had snarked, "Oh, I've got plans. I've got so many plans, sometimes I cry myself to sleep at night, cherishing the time when I had no plans."

Troy stared at Jeff for a long three seconds. Then said, "I hate you."

Jeff donned the appropriate offended look. It was a lie, because what he really felt was the prickling of pride. "Hate is such a powerful word, Troy. You sure you don't mean something else, like _jealously admire_?"

Troy thought it over. "Nah. Hate. See, I got no plans. I never have any plans, because the ladies of this school don't know A GOOD THING WHEN THEY SEE IT!" And then he sobbed a little, comforted only when Pierce gave him a reassuring arm-pat.

"There, there," Pierce said, using his soothing old-man voice, "it only hurts for a while. Then, eventually, you just come to accept your role in life."

Troy sniffed loudly. "What role is that?"

"Bachelor, of course! In my day, that meant something. People respected it."

"Wellllllllll," Annie said next, all bright and cheery, "who knows, maybe everyone will have something to do this weekend!"

Jeff had made several loud, dramatic groaning noises, head flung back. "SENOR CHANG," he bellowed towards the ceiling, all full of menace and tormented despair. Then he sighed and said, "Homework is going to be the death of me. I'm not even forty--how can anyone die so young and so handsome?"

"You're _old_," Britta had laughed.

"_You're_ old," Jeff threw back.

Abed said, out of nowhere, "I have an old soul."

And Troy said, "My feet look old."

And so obviously Jeff said, "Pierce's _face_ looks old."

And then Pierce had stood up with a flourish, grabbed his books, his earnoculars. "I don't have to sit here and listen to this kind of chicanery!"

Annie, though, didn't say anything else.

Until two days later, when she asked them, "Sooooo. What kind of cake does everyone like?"

A well-merited question that only spiraled into group chaos. Everyone had an opinion. Unfortunately, those opinions were strong and varied.

"Cake's pretty wack," Troy said. "I like pie."

"I like chocolate cake," said Abed. "With chocolate frosting. Are there sprinkles?"

"When you're suffering a diabetic attack," Jeff told him, "I'm going to very quietly get in your face and yell, I TOLD YOU SO."

Abed shrugged.

Britta said, "What's the cake-question for?"

And Annie had started to say something, and if they had been listening, and no one had interrupted her, they would've heard her say, _It's for my birthday! On Saturday!_

But instead Pierce had jumped in with, "Me, personally, I'm a fan of the sweet stuff."

Jeff gasped. "You? The oldest person alive? You like sugary foods?" With an eye roll he said, "Way to perfectly portray a cliche."

"I don't get it," Pierce said, baffled. "Is this 'cause I'm a born-again?"

"But," Annie tried. "Cake!"

"When you say _born again_," Troy wondered, deep in thought, as he usually was, "does that mean what I think it means? If I take it at a literal face value, it makes no sense, but when I try to go deep, I just get all confused."

"It's a cult," Britta explained for Troy. "He's in a cult, he just doesn't know it. That's how they work. They pluck out the weakest members of our society--"

"Hey!" Pierce defended.

"What? It's true. They pick out the most malleable ones, fill their heads with hogwash, and then send them back out in the world so that they can further fill out the flanks of their cult."

"You sound so paranoid right now," Jeff marveled, mostly amused.

"Britta," Shirley said, but oh man, it was so loaded, "you know there's no such things as cults, right?"

"What?! What are you talking about? Cults are a pretty real deal."

Shirley, in her nicest church voice: "Not any more real than evolution."

And that is how everyone spent the next twenty minutes _not_ talking about birthday cake.

The next day, though, Annie tried again.

"Being nineteen's going to feel so different than eighteen. I mean, I just assume! I don't have any hard knowledge. At least not yet. Maybe in a couple of days!"

But everyone mostly grumbled something contrary, about how it wasn't a huge deal, how no one even remembered nineteen--it all just flew by in a blur of anarchy, lots of days spent not wearing a bra, dating men who had girl-names, and highly charged feminist views. That was Britta.

So now, currently, the group looks on, this mutual look of chagrin.

"Sorry," Britta says, with a cringe.

"Yeah, hey," Jeff tells Annie. "Clearly we suck."

Troy throws his arms open wide. "Happy birthday, Annie!"

Too late, it lingers with this near tangible awkwardness.

Annie whirls around and heads for the other exit. "Forget it!" she shouts over her shoulder, and when the door slams behind her, it's the final push into making them flat-out feel like terrible people.

***

Jeff finds Annie twenty minutes later reading a book in the shade of a tree. She's actually propped up against the thing, legs tucked in at her side, like something out of a Disney movie. Ten to one, squirrels were singing an uplifting song before he got there.

When she notices him, her face hardens with determination. She hunkers down and doesn't take her eyes off the book.

"I come bearing heartfelt apologies," he tells her.

She still doesn't look up. Just shrugs. "Fine."

"We're all sorry. We didn't exactly _know_."

"Okay," she says, and Jeff thinks, _Isn't this what parenting a stubborn toddler should feel like?_ As per usual, though, he suffocates those feelings, because when they co-exist with his 'Annie is a viable sexual prospect!' feelings, things get pretty gross, and quickly.

Jeff lets out a breathy sigh and edges closer. "You really take this whole 'grudge' thing and just run with it, don't you?"

Now she does look up, this defensiveness fluttering with her eyelashes, like she might cry. "Everyone forgot my birthday."

He eases down beside her. "Technically, that plot's already been done. Molly Ringwald. _Sixteen Candles_."

Her blank stare is enough of a reminder: the 80's were no friends of hers.

"And anyway, we didn't forget."

She perks up a little. Though, smart girl, this one, she has the decency to stay guarded. "You didn't?"

"Ugh, alright, fine. You're right. We did. But only until you told us we did. What's the big deal, anyway? It's a birthday. Shouldn't your first instinct be to stifle the aging process?"

"You guys are my friends," she says, like some heavy accusation. "I just thought. It's stupid, but. I thought everyone would care! You know? Make a big deal out of it. Joke about little Annie Adderal's ascent into adulthood."

Jeff flies through emotions: pity, guilt, tenderness, this rupture of protectiveness.

He smiles. "You're right. Hey, you are. We're your friends, and if we're gonna go around calling ourselves that, we have to live up to it. So, come with me."

Jeff starts tugging at her hand, trying to drag her up with him.

"What?" she laughs, letting herself be pulled. "Wait! Jeff! Where are we going?"

She allows herself be dragged back to the library, and when they get there, Jeff tells her she has to close her eyes.

Of course, she only stares at him with mild distrust. "Seriously?"

"C'mon, what am I going to do? Lead you into the men's room?"

That scenario hadn't actually crossed her mind. Until now. Alarmingly. He wouldn't. Would he? He might. People were unpredictable, and hadn't she proved once upon a debate that man was evil?

Jeff, sensing her reluctance, says, "Please, that is so boringly unoriginal."

And she realizes, yeah. Jeff is anything but unoriginal.

"Close your eyes," he tells her. "And trust in the little that is left of my soul that I won't lead you into a scenario involving male nudity and your embarrassment."

With a grateful smile, she does as told.

When he's stopped pulling her along again, they're at the study room. She can tell. The number of steps and the tug of familiarity.

And then Jeff's voice is the only thing she hears. Low, but close. She actually jumps a little.

"Open your eyes," he breathes beside her.

She does, slowly. Adjusting. The first thing she sees is Jeff, smiling, and when he steps out of the way, something inside of Annie shifts. Or drops. She takes a step forward, wide-eyed.

They decorated the room. With left-over Valentine's Day decorations, but still.

"From the storage closet," Britta answers the unasked question, beaming proudly.

Jeff smirks. "They don't call me The Lock Master for nothing." But then his grin falls. "They don't actually call me that."

Shirley claps, this excited burst. "Happy birthday, sweetie!"

Abed echoes, "Happy birthday, Annie."

And everyone else says it too, and there's one of those Hostess cupcakes on the table with a piece of a straw sticking out of the top.

"No one had any spare candles," Pierce tells her.

She feels like she's coming apart, even while she feels like she's being glued back together.

"Guys." There are tears in her eyes. And who cares! "This is all so." But everything she comes up with seems so inadequate. Nice. Overwhelming. Everything she could've ever hoped for all those days she was sitting at home, hoping exactly for this.

Troy slides up and says, "Sorry we forgot your birthday. Guess we kinda suck for that, don't we?"

Her heart gets warm all over. "No," she tells him, tenderly, "you don't."

Jeff's hand is at her back. He guides her toward the table.

"C'monnnnnn. Eat your birthday vending machine cupcake while the expiration date still holds."

They huddle close around her, and she thinks, taking it all in, _this is how friendship is supposed to be._


End file.
